L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2025 www.italoamericano.org 28 L'Italo-Americano F rom the skies of Jupiter to Earth- monitoring satel- lites, Italy's rela- t i o n s h i p w i t h m e t e o r o l o g y spans cen- turies of observation, inter- pretation, and scientific inno- v a t i o n . T h o u g h o f t e n o v e r s h a d o w e d b y o t h e r n a t i o n s i n d i s c u s s i o n s o f weather science, Italy has played a crucial and continu- ous role in the development o f m e t e o r o l o g i c a l u n d e r - standing, bridging divination, empiricism, and space tech- nology through the centuries. In antiquity, weather was a source of divine messages: the Romans institutionalized this belief through the prac- tice of augury, a form of div- i n a t i o n i n w h i c h t r a i n e d priests interpreted the will of the gods by observing the flight of birds and other nat- ural signs, including atmos- pheric events. While it may not meet modern scientific standards, augury reflected a deep cultural attentiveness to changes in the sky and served a public function in civic deci- sion-making. Meteorological interpretation was also pre- sent in ancient Roman farm- ing treatises, such as those of V a r r o a n d C o l u m e l l a , which advised farmers on h o w t o p r e d i c t w e a t h e r changes based on cloud for- mations, wind patterns, and animal behavior. In the Middle Ages, the scientific vacuum left by the fall of the Western Roman Empire did not completely erase this interest in the skies: in monastic communities, particularly those following the Benedictine tradition, monks continued the practice of recording natural events, including weather conditions, in their chronicles. Of course, these were not meteorological "predictions" in the modern sense but empirical records that, over time, contributed to the understanding of seasonal cycles and local climate pat- t e r n s . E x a m p l e s o f s u c h record-keeping can be found in various monastic annals across Europe, such as the Annales Mellicenses (from Melk Abbey in Austria) and the Annales Colmariens- es Maiores (from Colmar, in France), which contain numerous entries on extreme weather. In Italy, venerable institutions like those associ- ated with the C a s s i n e s e Congregation, including the renowned Monte Cassi- no itself, and other founda- tions such as the Chroni- con Novaliciense from the Abbey of Novalesa in Pied- mont, would have meticu- lously maintained similar chronicles. In some cases, these chronicles represent the only surviving clima- tological data for particular r e g i o n s a n d c e n t u r i e s . B e y o n d m o n a s t i c w a l l s , records from major Italian cities like Florence, Siena, or V e n i c e a l s o o c c a s i o n a l l y i n c l u d e d c l i m a t i c d e t a i l s when weather significantly impacted urban or agricul- tural life. This tradition of o b s e r v a t i o n p e r s i s t e d t h r o u g h o u t t h e m e d i e v a l period and created a founda- tion for the more methodical studies that would follow during the Renaissance. The transition from obser- vation to experimentation began in earnest during the s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y , when Italy's contributions to meteorology became unmis- takably foundational. Evan- gelista Torricelli, a stu- dent of Galileo Galilei, invented the barometer in 1643, a moment that marked the first time air pressure could be measured with a sci- entific instrument, revolu- tionizing the study of weath- er. Torricelli's discovery – that atmospheric pressure c h a n g e s c o r r e s p o n d w i t h weather conditions – was a breakthrough that remains fundamental to meteorology today. But the barometer did n o t e m e r g e i n i s o l a t i o n ; rather, it was part of a broad- er Italian engagement with natural philosophy, promot- ed by Galileo and his succes- sors, who began applying mathematical and mechani- cal principles to understand nature. While Torricelli's barome- ter offered a new way to mea- s u r e w e a t h e r , t h e I t a l i a n physicist L u i g i G a l v a n i explored the role of electrici- ty in natural phenomena in the late eighteenth century, laying the groundwork for the study of lightning and atmospheric electricity. In parallel, the Jesuit polymath Giuseppe Toaldo studied climate patterns and pub- lished detailed accounts of temperature fluctuations, atmospheric pressure, and solar activity in northern Italy: his works, based on long-term empirical data, signaled a new stage in mete- orology, one where theory a n d o b s e r v a t i o n c a m e together into proto-scientific forecasting. The unification of Italy in the nineteenth century provided the opportunity to create a national infrastruc- ture for weather monitoring: in 1876, the Italian Meteo- rological Service, one of the earliest national meteo- r o l o g i c a l i n s t i t u t i o n s i n Europe, was founded: ini- tially housed under the Min- istry of Agriculture, the ser- vice aimed to centralize data collection and provide con- sistent forecasts to aid agri- culture and navigation. By the early twentieth cen- tury, Italy had established a dense network of meteoro- l o g i c a l s t a t i o n s , s o m e o f which are still active today. These stations contributed heavily to early international efforts to understand global climate patterns, also thanks to Italy's topography, which stretches from the Alps to the Mediterranean, making it a particularly valuable obser- v a t i o n p o i n t i n E u r o p e ' s broader climate map. Italian meteorologists also made significant strides in avia- tion weather, especially during the two World Wars, when meteorological fore- casting became vital for flight planning and military opera- tions. It is in those years that Italian scientists contributed t o t h e i m p r o v e m e n t o f upper-atmosphere observa- t i o n s t h r o u g h t h e u s e o f w e a t h e r b a l l o o n s a n d radiosondes. The space age brought a new chapter to Italian meteo- rology: in 2019, the Italian S p a c e A g e n c y l a u n c h e d PRISMA (PRecursore Iper- S p e t t r a l e d e l l a M i s s i o n e Applicativa), a state-of-the- art satellite capable of moni- toring Earth's surface with h y p e r s p e c t r a l i m a g i n g . Although PRISMA is primar- ily geared towards environ- mental monitoring, it repre- s e n t s I t a l y ' s o n g o i n g engagement with atmospher- ic science through advanced technology: the satellite col- lects data that can be used for studying pollution, vege- tation health, and changes in l a n d u s e , a l l f a c t o r s t h a t intersect with climate science and meteorology. Equally significant today is Italy's role in European meteo- rological cooperation: the country is a founding mem- ber of the European Orga- nization for the Exploita- tion of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), hosts several research insti- tutions dedicated to atmos- pheric science, while Italian universities continue to con- tribute to climate modeling, weather forecasting algo- rithms, and historical clima- t o l o g y . P r o j e c t s s u c h a s MeteoSat, Copernicus, and the Global Climate Observing System all benefit from Ital- ian expertise, particularly in satellite imaging and long- term data collection. It's been a long arc, that of Italian involvement with the weather—an arc that started from ritualistic sky-watching and, through more than two millennia, led to cutting-edge satellite monitoring. It's been a story of individuals like Torricelli and Galileo, but also of institutions, monastic scribes, government agen- cies, and space engineers. This journey through history and time shows us how per- s i s t e n t h u m a n c u r i o s i t y about the natural world can drive remarkable progress, while reminding us about the Belpaese's many contribu- tions to our understanding of the very air we breathe and the skies above. CHIARA D'ALESSIO F o r e c a s t i n g t h r o u g h t h e a g e s : I t a l y ' s contribution to meteorology Torricelli and his barometer (Image created with DALL-E 2) LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE

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